Eliezer Yudkowsky: Thing

“And so everything you try to say about how the native cognitive algorithm goes astray, ends up being contrasted to their direct perception of the Way Things Really Are—and discarded as obviously wrong.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

How an Algorithm Feels from the Inside http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/, (February 2008)
Context: People cling to their intuitions, I think, not so much because they believe their cognitive algorithms are perfectly reliable, but because they can't see their intuitions as the way their cognitive algorithms happen to look from the inside. And so everything you try to say about how the native cognitive algorithm goes astray, ends up being contrasted to their direct perception of the Way Things Really Are—and discarded as obviously wrong.

Way

“My experience is that journalists report on the nearest-cliche algorithm, which is extremely uninformative because there aren’t many cliches, the truth is often quite distant from any cliche, and the only thing you can infer about the actual event was that this was the closest cliche.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Predictible Fakers (January 2009) http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/predictible-fakers.html
Context: My experience is that journalists report on the nearest-cliche algorithm, which is extremely uninformative because there aren’t many cliches, the truth is often quite distant from any cliche, and the only thing you can infer about the actual event was that this was the closest cliche.... It is simply not possible to appreciate the sheer awfulness of mainstream media reporting until someone has actually reported on you. It is so much worse than you think.

Truth , Distant

“This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people."”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

"Radical Honesty" at LessWrong.com (10 September 2007) http://lesswrong.com/lw/j9/radical_honesty/
Context: Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and it was your responsibility not to be offended. This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people."

People , Reading

“And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won't tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they're old enough to bear it; and when they learn they'll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!”

Eliezer Yudkowsky Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Ch. 45 http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/45/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (2010 - 2015)

Death , Children , History , Star

“If I'm teaching deep things, then I view it as important to make people feel like they're learning deep things, because otherwise, they will still have a hole in their mind for "deep truths" that needs filling, and they will go off and fill their heads with complete nonsense that has been written in a more satisfying style.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

A comment on "Mind Control and Me" at LessWrong.com (March 2009) http://lesswrong.com/lw/46/mind_control_and_me/319?context=1

People , Truth , Feeling , Learning

“Part of the rationalist ethos is binding yourself emotionally to an absolutely lawful reductionistic universe — a universe containing no ontologically basic mental things such as souls or magic — and pouring all your hope and all your care into that merely real universe and its possibilities, without disappointment.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Mundane Magic http://lesswrong.com/lw/ve/mundane_magic/(October 2008)

Law , Hope , Disappointment , Soul

“If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky

How to Seem (and Be) Deep http://lesswrong.com/lw/k8/how_to_seem_and_be_deep/ (October 2007)

People

“When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Professor Quirrell in Ch. 73 http://hpmor.com/chapter/73
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (2010 - 2015)

Learning , Personality